I grew up in a scientific medical environment inspired by my father. As a Medical Advisor in Cardiology, Dermatology, and Oncology, my dad often taught me about the wonderful universe of medical and pharmaceutical sciences when I was only a five-year-old boy. This special father-son relationship tailored my intrinsic passion for science and fostered my character, amazed at the transcending works of the Creator.
In my mid-20s, I graduated in Biological Sciences and five years later, I obtained my Ph.D. in Immunology working on experimental oncology. I was supervised by Prof Luis R. Travassos, a distinguished Brazilian immunologist and mycologist that was previously trained by his good friend Prof Lloyd J. Old, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Prof Old was mentored by the Nobel prize winner, Prof Baruj Benacerraf, and is considered today the father of modern tumor immunology.
Old’s scientific discoveries are countless and were critical for further consolidation of the state-of-the-art immunotherapies using immune checkpoint blockers (ICB), developed by one of the 2018 Nobel prize winners Prof James P. Allison, who succeeded the deceased Dr. Old as the director of the Cancer Research Institute in 2011. It was in this context and immersed in this scientific network that Prof Travassos instructed me during my Ph.D. training, always inspiring me to appreciate cancer immunotherapy as a promising road that could one day lead us to a cure.
Cancer is now a leading cause of death worldwide, and Europe has the second-highest rates of cancer incidence and mortality according to Globocan. The most frequent cancer types include breast cancer, colorectum cancer, lung cancer, and metastatic cutaneous melanoma, which is the 5th most incident cancer type in Finland.
Melanoma has emerged as a versatile model for cancer immunotherapy research, and the approval of immunotherapies using ICB in metastatic melanomas led to a revolution in the way cancer is treated today. However, many patients do not respond to immunotherapies, and with the support of the Academy of Finland and InFLAMES, my research group seeks to answer questions on how we can improve the efficacy of these treatments.
During my postdoc training in the UK, I uncovered an important mechanism by which melanoma cells evade our immunity as one element of resistance to anticancer immune responses. Using metastatic melanoma as the main cancer research model, my group, the Melanoma Immune Oncology Research Group (MIORG), seeks to better understand this resistance mechanism across a reasonable amount of involved variables that will ultimately lead to the development of new prognostication tools to optimally select cancer patients to ICB immunotherapies.
To help the patients not likely to respond to ICB, we are also testing a new generation of prototype treatments that neutralize this resistance, restoring our immunity to fight cancer cells, and thus unleashing the full power of ICB immunotherapies. These treatments have been developed using strategic multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to ensure a successful bench-to-bed-side continuity of our research.
The idea that the road leading up to cancer cure is full of immunological pitfalls is a very crucial realization. However, it is encouraging also to realize how gifted our immune system is to the degree that it can achieve durable responses and memory against cancer. Today, it is possible to dream about a world without cancer if we manage to fill the gaps in our knowledge regarding ICB resistance, and by developing new combinatory strategies that could lead patients to long-term clinical benefits.
Rogerio Figueiredo, Associate Professor of Immunology
